Ayee, Buluda told herself in wonder, is it possible that only a few short years ago, this mother-to-be was yet a babe I held up from the womb and smacked life into, only a measured time ago? She counted the seasons and the girl’s count became sixteen years of life, and she remembered too that even the mother of this woman she had brought into life as well. I am old, old, she muttered, and she became a little sad. But not so old, she chuckled, that I cannot get a little warmth from the sight of a young buck caressing his love, nor yet a twitch of envy at the sight of a young virgin, or a young woman, or a young widow, or even a middle-aged widow; and not so old that I cannot feel excitement from the mating dance, and not so old that I cannot remember the time of my youth and my children, and the time, for instance, that I and Tuan Abu had down at the shore, when my husband was in Surabaya, and Tuan Abu yet a boy who knew not. Buluda laughed and laughed and the tears ran down her cheeks as she remembered her life. Ayee, thou art not yet ready for the earth, old woman, she told herself.
As the pains increased and pulsated quicker and more vast, Buluda held the girl’s hands to give her strength to push, push, push little one. Then she took her right hand away, and probed gently deep within and finger-touched the head, and she nodded to herself and knew that soon, what was to be, would be. She took her hand away and washed it, then sat once more beside the girl and held her hands, forgetting the ache in her own back or the oldness of her bones.
“Push, push again, little one,” she crooned encouragingly, “push for thy life and the life of thy child.”
The pain no longer ran like the ocean, but only came and went as the typhoon comes and goes — sudden, shocking, gone. Sudden, vicious, here. Sudden, killing, gone.
And the tide of pain hammered at the gate of brain, fulfilling the function that was required of it. It unlocked the door and let the spirit soar free, beyond the pain, leaving only muscles to the will of pain, leaving them free to stretch and split and move to open up the path of birth. A wave of pain crashed into her and her body bent to its will while her spirit rose above it.
Now N’ai was floating on a zephyred sky under a silken moon. She was serene now, no longer fearing death, no longer fighting it. She only felt regret, regret for her son, for her child to be, for her husband, regret that she would no longer be there to care and worry and cook and mend and plant and work and love the three of them.
“Truly I have no wish for death,” she murmured, unafraid, “but there is nothing I can do against it. So I will let death come, gently or terribly as is her wish. But I am sorry that I have to die — but there is nothing I can do, nothing.”
“Thou art wise, child,” a benign voice said.
She looked and smiled, and then a puzzled frown crossed her brow. “Tuan Abu! But thou art dead, Father! Thou art dead for two years now. Am I already dead?”
“No child, not yet.”
She was no longer in the sky, for the sky had become a chasm, and the path of the chasm was deep and dark and the thread of path was lit by fireflies, the steep walls of the chasm shutting out the sky and the light above. She was walking in the chasm, part of it, yet not a part of it, and now she walked out of the shadow into the sun.
“Ayee,” she sighed happily, “truly the sun is good.”
“How is he?” Tuan Abu asked gravely.
N’ai was puzzled for a moment and then she understood. Tuan Abu’s ears were old and tired, and where she had said sun, he had only heard “son.”
“He is growing and growing and he will make a fine man,” she said proudly, not wishing to embarrass him by saying “I but said the sun feels good.”
“I still can be proved right, my child,” Tuan Abu said sadly.
“I know, Father, but that is in the hands of Allah.”
She smiled confidently at the old man, loving him. “I would want the same to happen as it happened.”
It had happened when her first husband had left the village, and though she knew that she had been given to the stranger to make his sleep calm and not as a wife, even so she felt a wife to him. She had waited two weeks after he had left, and then she had bowed low before Tuan Abu, the Headman of the village, and said: “I am with child, Father.”
The Headman had looked at her astonished. “Did not the women tell thee what to do, what herbs to use, that thou should not have a child by him?”
“Yes, Tuan Abu, assuredly. But I wanted his child.”
Then Tuan Abu had become angry and had said: “This is a bad thing, N’ai. The blood of East and blood of West should not mix, for thou would have a tormented child that is half of our world and half of his. Neither of each, neither of both.”
“I know, Father. But I want his child, I want his child.”
“Thou hast done a bad thing,” Tuan Abu had said angrily. “You will go to Buluda and tell her to give thee the drink that will take away the child.”
“This I will not do,” she had said firmly.
Then the torrent of his rage had poured over her. “Thou art a wicked woman to disobey. Then think not of thyself but of the child! Why condemn a child to agony, a lifetime of agony, longing for one world or the other world — when neither can be had?”
“I want his child,” she had said stubbornly.
“This will not be!”
“Yes it will, Father. Be patient with me.” She had stopped and collected her words. “When my beloved went away he walked past the paddy and into the jungle. I followed secretly, obeying thy orders, but I wanted to see what would come to pass with him. He took off the village clothes and put on his own. Then he walked the road until a Japanese patrol met him. There was an officer with them and he questioned my beloved. My man said that he had been wandering the jungles for months, stealing food as he could, and he denied that he had ever lived in any village. He said that he had come from the west, and not the east where our village lay. The officer asked about the darkened color of his skin, and my beloved said that his own skin was deeply pigmented, and this, with the force of the sun, had made him darker than an Englishman should be.
“The officer gave him a cigarette and after they had talked about many things, the officer said, ‘As thou art an officer, thou hast lost face to be captured alive by the enemy. I will save thy loss of honor. I will help thee. I will let thee use my sacred dagger to commit hari kiri. Then thou wilt die honored.’
“My beloved hid his fear and said, ‘Why should you do this for me?’
“‘Because thou art the Samurai rank of England. I do this for I admire thy bravery and it is not fitting for a brave man to suffer the dishonor of capture.’
“For many minutes my beloved argued for his life, saying that by their code, the English code, that hari kiri was dishonor. Then the officer became angry and spat on my beloved and berated him. Finally the officer said, ‘Thou art a pig without honor. Therefore thou can die like the pig thou art,’ and they put iron manacles on his hands and took him away.”
She had stopped, the tears silently sweeping her cheeks. Then she had said with quiet strength, “So my beloved is dead. It is only right that his seed should live. It is right that a man should have a son to follow him. Even if the son is half of his world and half of ours.”
“Perhaps he has sons in his homeland,” the old man had said compassionately.
“No, Father, he has none. This is why I did not wish to stop the birthing of his child. Our son will be called Tua, which is almost Tuan, which is the title of respect.”
Then Tuan Abu had touched her forehead and blessed her, and said, “Against my knowledge, let the child be born. Perhaps it will be a girl child. For a girl it is not quite so bad to have East and West within her.”